Joshua Purdy
Born in Sheffield in 1804, Joshua Purdy was the son of Ann Purdy, a ‘spinster’ (with no father recorded in the baptismal register). Purdy was a table knife manufacturer, who by 1837 was working in Fitzwilliam Street. In the Census (1851), he was living and working in Wheeldon Street and employing a dozen men. He continued manufacturing table knives into the 1860s, but by 1871 had become blind. Joshua Purdy, cutler, Young Street, died on 27 February 1874, aged 70. He was buried in the General Cemetery. His wife, Lydia, was buried in the same grave in 1891.